Best Web Hosting Services in 2018

In the contemporary digital world, businesses have emerged at their fullest due to their massive online presence. Today, owning a business is not all that you need to reap hefty revenues, and having a website has become mandatory.

“A website’s success rely entirely on reliability and worthiness of its hosting provider”

Having a website doesn’t require you to sign up for its domain name only but a hosting subscription too. Nevertheless, hosting plays a vital role in managing traffic, data, and information on your site. Thus, you need to rely on a reliable and worthy provider that offers plans, service, and features befitting to your requirements. For this, we have evaluated the top web hosting providers, developed fresh websites, and tested them to come up with the top performing and best web hosting services in 2018.

Be it a launch or migration of a site from one hosting service to another, we have highlighted detailed information about the best web hosting providers that you need to know. Read along to discover everything:

Top Web Hosting Providers In 2018

“50% of mobile users will be put off if a web page takes more than 10 seconds to load. In addition, 60% won’t return to that site again.”

We have reviewed the top web hosting providers that are popular in industry and examined their plans, offerings, services, security aspects and performance. After completion of individual testing and examining customers’ reviews, we have picked the following top web hosting services that are reliable and offer state-of-the-art web hosting service to subscribers around the world.

Domain Name and Web Hosting – Why You Need Them?

Netizens are often confused with domain name and web hosting. Not only this, they often consider both as same. However, there’s a fine line between both:

“There are more than 123.78 million registered .com domain names around the world.”

Domain Naming

After an individual domain registration, a domain name provides a person with authority and ownership rights of a website. In other words, none can create and register a site with exactly same domain name that you have already registered. However, you will require a web host to put any content on your site.

“The .com domains make up about 50% of overall registered domain names worldwide.”

Web Hosting

In essence, web hosting involves all the hardware including servers that store content, videos, images, text and all files that you need on your website. These files are same that you use on your computer such as jpeg, mp3, png and many more.

On another hand, website files could vary from .php, .html or other formats. In fact, a web hosting provider tends to rent out access to its servers, providing services such as server maintenance and more against a monthly fee.

Now, when a visitor types in domain name of your site on a web browser, the device communicates with a web hosting server. Afterward, the server sends all the site files to that browser, which then appears as your site. Putting it simply, a web hosting provider offers place to store files that make up a site.

Free Vs. Paid Web Hosting

“You get what you pay for.”

Undeniably, there are tons of free web hosting services available on internet such as Wix, Weebly, Jimdo and many more. However, free web hosting service might be suitable for individuals who require a simple website regardless of exclusive designing tools and bandwidth perks.

Against these two tradeoffs, a person could have a free website. However, a concerning aspect of free web hosting provider is placement of ads on your site that provide them with revenues.

Who can avail benefits from free web hosting service?

Free web hosting provider might not be of any good to enterprise level businesses, but there are various individuals who can avail benefits from a free web hosting provider.

Having said, small businesses and startups could utilize these free websites to gain prominence on cyberspace. Afterwards, they could switch to one of the best web hosting service for a unique domain, credibility, and features such as unlimited storage, bandwidth, and tons of security aspects.

How much do domain registration costs?

Irrefutably, the top web hosting service could offer a free domain name registration for the first year. However, a registered domain name requires annual fee payment that varies from $10 to $20. In addition, when signing up for a domain name registration, ensure that you are not seeing their promotional rate, as it could increase dramatically once a promotional period expires.

Besides, we have discovered that many web hosting services offer a discounted and affordable plan initially. But, their monthly plan and domain registration fee after one year get sky-high. Thus, we have listed above only those providers who offer economical plans instead of cheap attention seeking strategies.

Different Types of Web Hosting Providers

Web hosting is a quite complicated industry in terms of offerings, features, pricing plans and more. Not only this, many companies charge fee as per type of a hosting that could be either shared, virtual private server, dedicated or cloud hosting.

Having said, we have explained about each type of web hosting service below:

Popular Categories

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting provider places multiple websites on a single server. Interestingly, it is one of the least expensive web hosting service. Besides, each client shares a hosting space on a shared web hosting server.

Many shared web hosting providers offer reliability of website but only at initial stage. The reason lies on a fact that when you exceed an assigned bandwidth regularly on a shared package, the web hosting service will demand you to upgrade to exclusive plans.

Just like any other hosting, there are few things that need to be considered before picking your shared hosting. There are certain essential aspects that need to be addressed which are as following:

Technical Requirement

If you don’t have more than 800 daily page views, then shared hosting plan is the ideal option for you. It meets your technical requirement at a more affordable rate. Some web hosting plans also offer ‘unlimited’ hosting, but it is more of a marketing gimmick where you will receive update and revival notifications upon completion of a certain volume.

Furthermore, you cannot store your personal files on your shared hosting as a part of the ‘unlimited’ space.

Domain Management Tools

It is crucial for you to look which control panel you’re picking as the platform before you finalize your web hosting plan. Many hosts offer free domain plans for at least the first year, whereby you can transfer to paid hosting after the trial period. More companies, however have developed plans with control panels where you can control your domain.

cPanel (Control Panel)

The ideal web hosting plan is the one that offers you complete control of the control panel. However, only a few hosting plans offer complete control while many don’t. Some of the providers also offer custom control panels which are efficient and very easy to use. With tutorials and guides, you can easily master the art of controlling it.

Website Builder

Quite a lot of hosts provide website builders through their ‘ drag and drop’ website builders. This will enable you to edit and set up a few pages yourself on your website, although it is very complicated.

Multiple Website Hosting

Many web hosting sites offer multiple domains and websites within one shared hosting account. They offer multiple website hosting option usually under the ‘unlimited domains and website’ options however, as mentioned earlier, it’s just a marketing gimmick and don’t necessarily mean unlimited volume.

VPS Hosting

Virtual private service hosting is a next level service when compared with shared web hosting. It encompasses more powerful configuration on CPU side.

This type of web hosting service is suggested for businesses that generate a large number of traffic. However, server space is shared, but you can customize the space when desired. In addition, premium security features are the added benefits of VPS hosting.

Hardware Performance

To determine the hardware performance CPU speed benchmarks are calculated to evaluate the VPS web hosting costs through which companies can evaluate the performances. Therefore, it is necessary for companies to establish the ability and the data transfer rates on every account to reassure the ability of various uplink providers.

Bandwidth limit

One should always make crystal clear the subscribed bandwidth is sufficient for your data transfer and other web hosting requirements. Almost all VPS providers will charge you for extra bandwidth limit once you surpass your prescribed limit. Therefore, ensure that the prescribed bandwidth limit is sufficient for you.

VPS Platform Type

There are various types of VPS platforms that you can choose from, Cloud, Managed and Unmanaged VPS.

Managed vs. Unmanaged VPS Platforms

You can get VPS hosting plans in both managed and un-managed options solely depending on if your VPS hosting provider offers you pre-installed software or gives you the options of installing and configuring your OS plus server extensions. In managed VPS you’ll receive pre-installed and pre-configured Linux operating system with optimized settings.

In unmanaged however, it is your responsibility to manage and install the security policies and software.

Cloud VPS plans

In cloud VPS plans you can get VPS plans with highly advanced loading balancing with premium hardware configuration and traffic management.

Plans Scalability

There are a few methods of determining the VPS hosting prices. one is through searching for high memory as it will be less costly than to go for plans worth high scalability and bandwidths as compared to normal plans.

Furthermore, many plans that seem cheap actually may carry a lot of hidden costs and charges, therefore carefully scrutinize the plans. Also, dedicated plans may be costlier but they are the best options for long term plans.

Security

It’s your foremost priority to ensure your data is secured and your customers’ information is protected at all cost. You need to take three elements in focus for this, your software, your hosting provider and your team.

Cloud VPS and managed hosts needs security upgrades on daily basis and same goes for data backup as these allow website’s restoration during a system crash, therefore all data must be secured and backed up.

Dedicated Hosting

As the name indicates, dedicated hosting doesn’t involves renting of a server space that shared and VPS hosting do. In dedicated hosting, a single server is assigned for a single site.

The main advantage of dedicated hosting is protection against accidental crashes that happen due to traffic spike on shared sites. However, dedicated web hosting might not be suitable for small businesses, bloggers, or personal usage, as it demands an expert for regular maintenance and management of servers.

It is an undeniable fact that every business wants complete autonomy and control over its hosting need as, preferring the most loyal hosting services as the number one choice in the market. And for this, the size of the business does not matter, whether big or small, every business wants if not a massive then at least a wide array of options for their web applications websites and web applications. Brands choose the servers that offers them most feasibility in terms of mobility and accessibility to server options.

Before purchasing any server, users should consider following aspects for identifying the ideal servers.

Bandwidth & Data Center Issues

Many data centers provide the users with an option to choose the bandwidth provider based on a loyal and dedicated hosting account. Some companies also offer ports ranging from 1 Gbps- 40 Gbps along with various pricing options that are based on the bandwidth rates made on the account. However, best practice remains that you make certain that the hosting company you choose has multiply redundant telecom connections to host different bandwidth speed options.

Managed vs. non-managed hosting support

Being a user, one of the important decisions you have to make is to decide if you want to go for managed or unmanaged hosting. The only difference between the two is that managed hosting offers you feasibility by taking complete responsibility of offering you support for each task and problem, regardless of it being in your emergency or daily hosting features.

Hardware

It is essential to pay for an incredible hardware with top notch quality, since you are renting out a whole physical server. Don’t go for a void of an outdated, sluggish and lethargy component by compromising on the price. Dedicated servers with grade SSDs and HDDs are the ideal choice. You can also search for classic, Dell, HP and Super Micro servers that are the safest bet and have made a decent name for themselves in the industry.

Network Quality and Up-time

The best web host is considered the one with best network quality. To find that about a host, you need to find out the ‘Tier’ rating as it gives the best description of how good or bad the infrastructure of the network really is. The best hosters that come under ‘Tier 1’ are known to have almost non redundant power with an up-time of 99.7671%.

Control Panels & Software

It is essential that you have a service provider that will provide you both, a functional interface and a clean panel.

Server Extensions

Eliminating the need of highly complex systems, some web hosts offers ‘server less’ solutions that facilitate things on a whole different level for you.

Their server extensions are basically the programming languages that are added to the collection of WAMP/LAMP pile of custom development and its respective requirements.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is considered as one of the best web hosting service. In cloud web hosting service, all information and bandwidth is distributed across a wide range of servers, enhancing efficiency.

However, among the downsides of a cloud web hosting service are the pricey plans and resource allocation for maintenance and management of the servers.

Best Web Hosting Services – Pricing, Charges, Security & More

For users’ convenience, we have listed the features and offerings that you should look for in the top web hosting service. Here’re the features that you should consider while choosing from various web hosting services:

Pricing Details

These rates are charged regularly for service delivery usually on annual basis. Many times, companies promote their service at the cheapest price for the first year.

Yearly Rates

A good example can be seen when you visit package plan of a web hosting provider and witness a crossed price for a discounted price. Not to mention, after one year of service the crossed price might be charged for subscription. Thus, you should regularly check and ensure what you’re about to be charged.

Setup Charges

Setup charges include all the expenses that occur during the installation phase. Often, companies waive off these charges when a customer signs-up for annual subscription. However, subscribers who opt for monthly plans often have to bear this fee.

Domain Registration Charges

Domain registration fee includes the charges for registration of a domain name. Many companies offer free domain registration for the first year. But, this fee is charged afterwards on annual basis.

Hosting Plan Details

Package Plans

Primarily, every web hosting services offer around two to three plans i.e. shared, VPS, dedicated or cloud. However, there are some web hosting providers offering only one plan that’s often shared web hosting plan. Not to mention, switching to different plan can affect bandwidth, storage, and flexibility.

Storage And Bandwidth

The storage refers to amount of disk space a web hosting provider is offering to you. The allotted disk space can come into utilization for storing files, emails, databases and more site elements. The amount of disk space can vary as per package plan you opt for.

On another hand, bandwidth is the traffic you receive on your website per month. In addition, it could also highlight size of files being accessed from your site by netizens. As a rule of thumb, the larger the files you have on your website, the more bandwidth you will require.

Hosting Of Domains And Subdomains

A single account can offer utilization of various sites. In addition, the best web hosting services offer businesses to handle more than a couple of domains with a single account. It provides website owners with a single dashboard to control multiple sites. Besides, a subdomain serves as an extension of a single domain name, preceding the main site name.

Money Back Guarantee

A generous money back guarantee represents reliability and worthiness of a web hosting provider. In comes into handy at times when you aren’t satisfied with a web hosting service. However, not all web hosting providers offer a refund policy and thus you should only opt from one of the best web hosting services mentioned in this guide. In addition, you can discover more about a refund policy of a web hosting service by referring to its terms and conditions or usage policy.

Security Aspects

Site Backup And Restoration

Site backup and restoration can come into handy at times when a component of your site is damaged due to any reason. In addition, if your site is facing unexpected crashes, you can restore the last backup version. Not to mention, only the best web hosting services provide site backup and restoration and you should make sure your web hosting provider does offer them.

Shared SSL And SSH

Secure socket layers provide encryption of data when it travels on internet. The encryption is of many advantages and only a handful of web hosting services offer it. In addition, the SSH or secure shell serves a network protocol that offer a premium security and protection at the time of accessing remote computer systems. However, you should make sure that your web hosting provider offers them both.

Anti-Spam Protection

The anti-spam protection system offers protection against a wide range of emails that could contain malicious content. Irrefutably, a large number of web hosting services utilize third-party span defenders for security.

Control Panel Board (CPanel)

Usability Scoring

The usability score represent the usage and functionality of a website including its control panel. The score is chiefly derived after assessing host’s one-click install and selection. Generally, the high scoring sites offer easy installation of custom cron jobs, site backing up, creation and stats analysis. This score is vital to identify worthiness of a site.

Free Domain Name And Transferring

Beside, free domain name registration, domain name transferring is common these days. Many times, users want to switch from a web host to a different one. However, the transferring costs a fee that site owner has to bear. It is suggested to inquire a web hosting service about its charges for domain name transferring.

WordPress Compatibility

Undeniably, WordPress has become the mainstream site management and creation platform. Around thousands of sites are using WordPress due to its integrity, user-friendliness, reliability and handy aspects. However, you should ensure that your web hosting service supports WordPress builder and interface.

Supporting ECommerce

This feature is offered by only the best web hosting providers through which they offer a software for shopping cart. In fact, this software is of many benefits for eCommerce websites. Not to mention, its uncommon to see this feature offered by shared web hosting providers.

Support System

Supporting system is the first mode of assistance that users seek at time of a query. Only the best web hosting services offer a wide range of support systems such as 24/7 helpline, chat support system, knowledge based section for detailed guides, faqs section and much more. It is recommended to check the types of support systems that your web hosting provider offers before you sign up.

Final Thoughts

We hereby wrap our guide about the best web hosting services in 2018. Till now, we have revealed what web domain and hosting services are, types of web hosting services and what should you look for in the best web hosting provider.

In addition, for your ease, we picked the industry’s top web hosting services and passed them through individual testing to come with the top performing providers mentioned in this article